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Okay, let me see if I get this right. FT dogs have long marks that are typically in the vacinity of a big white marker. The dog has to be able to run 400 yards to the big white marker, 4 times. HT dogs have shorter marks but the marks come out from behind blinds or out of nowhere and the dog has to be in control and steady or he/she fails. Interesting!!!

Field trial dogs are judged and "scored" on how they run to the birds, not the white coat which may or may not be there. Field trial dogs should mark falls regardless of the distance and do not have an automatic 400 yard run built in for every mark, if the birds is thrown at 50 yards then they go to the bird at fifty yards.
Not all FT dogs are wild and crazy and those that are generally only run one series, very few of the good ones are otherwise they would not be able to see and remember that long retired bird at 400yards and go put their face on it. The calmer you sit, the more you see, the better you mark and retrieve.
I have seen a lot bigger shows at the line judging HT than I have ever seen at a FT.

Last edited by David McLendon; 02-06-2013 at 12:29 PM.

Field Trials are competitions....not everyone gets a "participation ribbon" and they do "keep score"

If normal training is Field Trial set ups and you enter that dog in a Hunting Retriever test, a smart handler will do some training using hunting test set ups. In the past what I did was start out by doing a chaos drill:

4 exposed guns at distances of 25-40 hards from the line.
have each station duck call one at a time and/or all together
Run singles, take lots of time before you call for the mark,
let the dog settle in, go slow and pick up the mark
the marks can be thrown as similar fashion to an ABCD

CAUTION: do not use this as a steadying drill - it's intent is to let the dog settle, focus in spite of all the chaos/confusion

Then do a few days of hidden guns, duck calls, breaking birds prior to running the HT

Most folks with FC AFC's particularly National Qualifying would have little motivation to run hunt test. To take an established HT dog up to FC or AFC level is a real long shot. FC AFC HRCH Gator Pts Sweet Potato Pie would be one that ran HT first and then moved on, but they are few.

Field Trials are competitions....not everyone gets a "participation ribbon" and they do "keep score"

Most folks with FC AFC's particularly National Qualifying would have little motivation to run hunt test. To take an established HT dog up to FC or AFC level is a real long shot. FC AFC HRCH Gator Pts Sweet Potato Pie would be one that ran HT first and then moved on, but they are few.

Mike Judas also had a exceptional dog, AFC HRCH Carronade's Lady Katherine MH. She was a HRCH at 12 months, she had accumulated 500 HRC points at 26 months old. She went on to rack up 28 AA points in 20 trials.

Howard NiemiYou really gotta be careful about how high a pedestal you put your method, your accomplishments, your dog on. There's usually someone who's done more, somewhere. And they may have used a different method than you did! Chris Atkinson 2013